Young Woman Broadcasts Suicide To Instagram Followers

While social media platforms like Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram have offered users a means by which to keep up with their friends who are both close by and faraway, there is certainly a dark side to all of them. A quick glance-through on Tumblr or Instagram will reveals infinite posts featuring thinspiration, the glamorization of substance abuse, and suicide glorification. This particular story deals with the latter.

A young woman from China who went by the username jojostai1012 may have actually broadcast her suicide to her Instagram followers. She posted, “I will haunt you day and night after I’m dead,” apparently in reference to her ex-boyfriend. She then posted a photo of several possessions set on fire–things that appeared to be books, clothes and possibly electronics–along with the caption “let it burn, all the things like ashes float away.” The next image simply shows feet dangling over the side of a building, and then there are no more photos.

“Life has been so miserable these past few days. I want to forget all of this, to control my mood and not be crying painfully late at night every night, but I can’t do it, there’s nothing I can do. All of this is too unfair to me, I can’t bear it.”

On another photo, she said (presumably regarding the same ex-boyfriend):

“He said before that if his mother doesn’t agree to us getting married, he will date [remain as a couple] with me forever, getting married when we are old. This really is the most romantic words of love I’ve ever heard in my life, but it was also a lie. All of this I cannot forget, can never forget, unless I die.”

While no one has come forward yet with the young woman’s identity, a low-res photo of a potential body lying face-down near a building. A possible neighbor of jojotsai10121 reportedly said this on the Chinese forum Mop:

“This is real, we live in the same building, she died Saturday morning. No matter what, how much courage must it have taken for a little girl to kill herself? Hope she will find peace in the afterlife.”

While everything on the Internet should be taken with a grain of salt, I do not think this should be taken lightly regardless. (Plus, according to the Daily Dot, no duplicate images of these photos appear on Google, which is typically a telltale sign of a fake story.) As our culture becomes more engrained in technology, so do our individual lives. For millions of people in the world, online outlets are no longer simply places to post photos for our pets or parties; they’re virtual places in which we share our triumphs, failures and disappointments. People have posted suicide notes and depressed thoughts on on Facebook, so it’s not far-fetched to think this type of act is possible.

That said, I desperately am hoping it is some really sick prank. Nobody deserves to die lonely and in pain.